Artificial Intelligence, the ability of computers and software to research and consolidate incredible amounts of data and predictive analytics into a concise and clear response by making decisions or solving problems, is an incredible achievement for mankind. Though many fear this accomplishment of machine learning, I embrace it. Like all change which has the promise of good, if misused there is the potential for evil. This pair of opposites is the way technology has always worked. Yet, the so called “elites,” fearmongers, and those who look for problems to fix, like to abort creation before it has a chance to mature.
I am not so naïve as to think human beings are not capable of doing evil. Just studying the 20th Century alone proves that man has a malevolent side. Yet, man also creates the aesthetic of beauty with art and architecture, with poetry, prose, and production. Just gaze at the fluid movement of a classic Greek sculpture like the Venus de Milo by Alexandros of Antioch or the magnificence of Michaelangelo’s David or the soaring faces of four monumental men carved by Gutzon Borglum on Mount Rushmore.
The mind of man has always been the source of our wealth. Giant minds gathered in Philadelphia in 1776 to create a document for the ages. Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence manifests the exceptionalism of Americans who were first in recognizing the universal, equal natural rights of all men. Whether citizen or slave, sailor, or servant, the ideal that all men are created equal and that we are equally human is the pinnacle of modern man’s thought. No individual is more human than any other. No man has a right to have dominion over another. No other nation has ever abolished slavery in two generations from its founding. Our brethren in Europe, Asia, and Africa had eons of time to do the same. Government run by dictators, tyrants, and fools who did not or would not recognize these universal individual rights is the problem man has always faced.
As human ingenuity and technology fuse even closer, it is still the individual that has inherent rights; rights from a creator not manufactured in a factory or given by the government to be controlled. Those worthies who read classic texts, wrote about timeless principles, and fused many of them together, prepared a nation to think and create a unique proposition; that individual rights are the new AI or as I see it, the new American Individualism.
For the hundreds of years prior to the glorious creation of the United States of America, to the two-hundred and forty-eight years after, the world has benefited from knowing the principles this nation was founded upon. Our citizenship, our virtues, our morals, our ethics, and our choices have led to actions that have built a nation like no other. America is not perfect. We are flawed and have untold problems and opportunities. Yet the creation of America, with its grace, golden ideals, and grit have made American Individualism unique in the pantheon of human existence. There has been no other place like her and, most likely never will be. That is why she is worth preserving and defending. She, like the parchment her founders wrote upon, is fragile but she resides strongly in the hearts of her people.
The moral concept of rights allows personal and intellectual property to flourish under the economic system of free market Capitalism. Collectivists have always tried to stamp out the flame of individualism under the auspices of the greater good. Yet, as Ayn Rand stated in Man’s Rights, “Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.” In other words, it is moral for individuals to trade value for value as perceived by the traders, not the intolerance of bureaucrats.
There are those around us who clamor for someone to do something or create another law to impede freedom, or those who are waiting for a new type of leader to fix the problems we face. They should understand what defenders of rights know. The problem is not out there. The leader is not out there. The solution is not out there. The only thing that may save us from being defeated, is waiting for others to do what YOU must do to remain sovereign. Do something away from force and towards freedom that expands individual rights and concretizes the American individualism we are endowed with.
How? We can do this by being better informed regarding the timeless freedom principles of Human Equality, Natural Rights, Government Secured Rights, Government by Consent, Limited Powers, Constitutional Government, Rule of Law, and Equal Protection of the Law. Knowing and using these ideas, one can help to persuade and influence in writing and speech, to protect individual rights.
The historic default of man is not to take the proper course of action but to do what is expedient by using his natural inclination to take what is not his rather than trade and use his mind to advance his cause of Liberty. American Individualism articulates its ideas and persuades others to look forward. As Jefferson stated in his first inaugural address, “a wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry, and improvement and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government; and necessary to close the circle of our felicities.”
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